“The performance of the router/switch market roughly reflects economic
conditions, and true to form economic weakness in Europe, North America,
and Latin America drove down IP router and switch revenue in the third
quarter,” notes Michael
Howard, Infonetics
Research’s co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks. “EMEA
posted another negative quarter amid the ongoing fiscal crisis in
Europe, and we may not see much of the usual final quarter budget flush,
as it seems just as the European Commission gets closer to economic
steadiness, more negative reports arrive.”

Howard
adds: “Although North America is showing positive economic signs,
carrier router/switch revenue is down 2% from the year-ago quarter, and
Latin America is slowing as many of the year-long projects in South
America and Mexico wind down.”

SERVICE PROVIDER ROUTER AND SWITCH MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

In 3Q12, the global service provider router and switch market,
including IP edge and core routers and carrier Ethernet switches, is
down 5% both sequentially and from the year-ago 3rd
quarter, to just shy of $3.4 billion

Asia Pacific is the only region up in 3Q12 over 2Q12, albeit slightly,
built on a 31% spike from Japan

In the router-only segment (IP edge and core routers), Cisco
maintains its strong market share lead, but in a shakeup in the 3-way
race for the next 3 leadership positions, Juniper took back the
#2 spot from Huawei, who dropped to #4, while Alcatel-Lucent
held steady in 3rd in 3Q12

Cisco, Juniper,Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei
together account for 88% of total IP router revenue (edge and core) in
3Q12

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